New Year's Surprise
by NullNoMore
Summary: Vandham has a plan. Elma agrees to help. Lin goes along for the ride. Nagi denies all knowledge of the entire thing. A slightly belated Secret Santa for the parent of Mavis, a good good Cross. All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but Neon gave Mavis her soul.


**New Year's Surprise**

**Being a belated Secret Santa, an extremely hush hush project whipped up by Elma and Vandham, transcribed from a handwritten incident report, with all best wishes for Mavis' parent Neon. Lin helped a little. Nagi disavows all knowledge of the entire thing.**

**Mostly canon, way too much logistics, slight swears (because Vandham), the smallest reference to a good Cross.**

**All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but Neon gave Mavis her soul.**

* * *

THE LIST

The early afternoon sunlight was perfect, flickering through the leaves of the few trees dotting the streets of the Commercial District. Elma moved at a relaxed stroll, smiling at everyone and no one. She was casually dressed in a sweater that had been very popular when they had first arrived on the planet. The bold red and blue stripes had fallen out of fashion, but today the garment felt new to her. The novelty of wearing her real form hadn't faded, and she enjoyed how the soft sweater brushed her blue skin. For the moment, she was content. Everything felt good, even the breeze. Well, perhaps that was too brisk, she thought, flicking an errant crystal strand of hair out of her face. Perhaps she should suggest they eat indoors.

However, her lunch companion had already arrived at the Wrothian Curry Emporium and had selected a table at the far corner of the patio. He waved urgently at her, and Elma repressed a broader smile. Commander Vandham was large enough to fill his own personal hex on Frontier Nav. There was no worry about her missing him in the small seating area. But she hurried over to forestall his gestures from knocking a waiter flying.

He'd ducked his head down as soon as she directed herself toward the table, and was almost hiding behind a menu. Elma sat down with a slight sense of concern. Something felt off. Even after all her decades of living with humans, Elma wasn't 100% confident in her understanding of them. The lunch invitation had been hurried and sudden, and now Vandham was acting strangely. Could he possibly be embarrassed to be seen with her? Or was he uncomfortable with her original form? She should reject these concerns, she knew that. Any man who could wax rhapsodic about the toe beans of Nopon in unguarded moments wouldn't object to Elma in any form. The Commander had worked with Elma for almost as long as she had known humans and never shown any unkindness. Still, his behavior nagged at her.

"I hear the ovis curry is good," he muttered from behind a rectangle of card stock that barely masked his mustache.

"I'm partial to the vegetarian selections myself," Elma returned, still studying him. He had noticed her intent gaze. He swiveled his head around quickly, looking over his shoulder at a brick wall and then at all four corners of the patio. Elma's curiosity intensified. Her expression became all the more calm.

The waiter came, taking their orders, and silence fell upon the table. The Commander kept darting glances at pedestrians and Elma kept studying him. She had no idea why he could be so nervous. Before she could launch into some innocuous small talk about Lin and the child's latest hyper-focus, the Commander pulled out a scrap of paper and pushed it across the table towards Elma. "This. I need you to run me an errand. I need these materials and I need them in 24 hours."

"A mission. What area?"

"Not a mission," he emphasized, raising his voice slightly. He cringed, and laid his fingers on his list, pinning it to the table. "Definitely not a mission," he said in something of a rumbling whisper. "Do me a favor and keep away from the mission board about it. Absolutely away from there. And when you pick your team, don't request anybody through the system. Ask them face to face, discretely."

"Not a mission." Vandham's painful secrecy reminded Elma suddenly of Tatsu and his most transparent schemes. The same excitement and guilt, the same hint of trying to get something over on her. It was almost cute. However, she was no more willing to play the fool for the Commander than for the 'tween turnip. "In that case, how will I pay my team? For that matter, what about myself?"

"You know I'm good for it," Vandham replied. Elma repressed a smile, because his deep defensive rumble reminded her of a Nopon whine. "Maybe you could pay them yourself? Keep a tab and I'll reimburse you."

The food arrived. Vandham immediately started to shovel his food into his mouth, but Elma preferred to let hers cool from volcanic to steaming. She studied the list. It wasn't printed; Vandham's neat engineer's handwriting filled the paper. Next to each item was the quantity, a few with special notes, and a Frontier Nav location. She appreciated the added research; she recognized a few as common items, if in large quantities, but others were more obscure. Missile wiring, for example, weren't much called for in NLA. One thing that she noted: all the suggested locations were some distance from the city. In one case, she knew of a likely gathering spot directly past the West Gate, but the FN location listed was in Oblivia.

Elma took out her comm device to snap a picture of the list. A meaty palm swatted it practically into the air. She looked at Vandham with astonishment.

"Not a mission. Keep it off the comms. Keep it away from the board. This is off the books, way off." He leaned back and sighed. "I invited you here because the kittens don't hold with eavesdropping. This place is probably as clean as our more secure areas. Please, Elma, play along with me."

Elma tucked both device and list away carefully. "Do I get an explanation?"

"Eventually. If it works. Even if it doesn't. It isn't Ganglion, I can tell you that." He scrubbed his face for a moment, and a wry smile landed on his mouth. "The fate of the city doesn't hang in the balance. The fate of nothing is hanging, so you can relax. It matters to precisely one person, well, maybe two. Get it done in 24 hours or drop the whole thing, I'll still pay a nice bounty. One more thing." He leaned close to her and his dark eyes were earnest. "No one gets hurt. Not a silver hair on your head, or anyone else's. It's not worth crap. I'd rather you post all the details on BLADE tower than have anyone get so much as a scrape."

xcxcxcxcxcxcxc

THE SHOPPING

It wasn't the end of his instructions. He'd had a few more points, clarifying the quality of ingredients (he'd wanted longer wires, for example, and more pliant plant stems) and confirming her suspicion that he'd prefer she do her gathering away from the city. Another odd point was his demand that she not include Yelv in her party. "That boy is too close to certain people, catch my drift?" His aversion to having the BLADE mission assignment infrastructure learn about his plans rang loud and clear.

Elma had her own ideas for building a team that wouldn't start making connections. She'd pick up free BLADEs at the temporary division stations that dotted the continents. No payment, since they were already on the clock from BLADE, and she could cut them loose regularly to keep them from noticing her shopping list. She'd hit the squad goals hard, since those paid decently but didn't require registration, and do whatever intended gathering while she was at it.

The one hitch to this plan came in the form of two chatty 13-year olds. Lin and Tatsu were going to be along for the ride for far longer than the time period that Elma had to complete the job. Lin had finally worn out her welcome at both the Outfitters' and the Administrative Hangars. From what Elma had learned, this was always due to unapproved improvements to skells. For example, Doug was refusing to have her on his team after she'd rebalanced the augments on his pure reflect skell, a fact he'd only realized after the leonine tyrant Luciano had shredded said skell into a thousand pieces and one ugly insurance claim. Elma usually tried to keep out of these situations, since Lin had always wriggled into people's good graces with a sweet smile and an excited suggestion for new changes. But when Alexa herself had told a tearful Lin to get out of her, Alexa's, sight, and much worse refused to let her, Lin, finish reassembling the prototype skell that she, Alexa, had been hoping to finish testing before dinner, when such a thing happened, Elma quietly took over babysitting duties.

That Tatsu was part of the package went without saying. Elma was almost more worried about keeping the mission, correction, the job secret from him than from Lin. Lin, brilliant though she was, all too often let her mind gallop away in a thousand directions. If she got curious about the wrong things, Elma knew that a question about skells, the chance to take point on the job, or a pun casually slipped into conversation meant that Lin would be delightfully distracted. Tatsu's head was emptier, and so he had space to doggedly devote to minutia. Furthermore, like Elma, he was unfamiliar with human traditions, and, unlike Elma, he didn't have decades of hiding that made him hesitate to ask follow-up questions. Lastly, he was a true Nopon, and his inevitable monetary focus might reveal the shaky nature of the team's mission.

Elma did her best to keep the explanation simple and therefore inoffensive. Lin needed to clear out of NLA to give people a chance to forgive her. Meanwhile, Elma felt like taking a working vacation. They'd do a few quests, but mostly they'd sightsee. Maybe they could pick up something tasty for Tatsu, maybe visit the Nopon if he wanted (a few gathering spots were near the Cauldros caravan). The temporary teammates would keep it light and breezy.

Elma chose to use her mim on the mission. Not an unattractive form, even if she missed the purity of her organic senses. But she remembered Vandham's plea that no one get hurt. She could fling her puppet self into danger without hesitation, protect the rest of the team, and follow his words. It still felt a little risky, leaving the city for a scavenger hunt, but teams had done worse for shadier asks, so Elma had made peace with her decision even while strapping on her armor.

"I don't get why Doug got so fussy all of a sudden," Lin said for the umpteenth time on the ride to Noctilum. "I've fixed his skell a billion times, and he never complained."

"Uncle Dougy complain when skell explode," Tatsu offered.

"That was weeks ago, and he wasn't as mad as this time. You know what I think? I think he was trying to impress somebody on his team and now he's just mad he looked bad."

"Looking almost dead, Tatsu heard."

"He was fine," Lin stated, mostly accurately. "Frye went back and cleaned up the mission for him."

"Ostrich cleaned up reward too."

"Yeah, that'd make Doug sore, I guess." She giggled. "He likes his credits, even more than he likes cute Mediators." Their banter was relaxing, and Elma smiled to herself. Her stated reasons for this expedition weren't as false as one would think.

They picked up first one temporary teammate, then another, and proceeded to target a crocodilian enemy that regularly overstepped its pool and thus landed on the squad list just as regularly. While they waited for the enemy to regroup and attempt to menace them again, Lin was happily kept busy assessing the armor and weapon layouts of the recruits. Tatsu peppered them with useful offers of better augments, at deep discount for friends. This gave Elma a chance to wander the edges of the clearing, seemingly without purpose but determinedly cutting some of the leaves that Vandham had requested. They looked unassuming in the daylight, but she knew they would glow brilliantly in moonlight

Elma hadn't been sly enough, though. Lin noticed her botanical curiosity. "Ew, don't get that stuff on you. Your hand'll turn bright pink by dinner time."

"Oh, no, if that happens you can say you caught me ... red-handed," Elma said dryly.

Lin whooped with amusement. "I love that. Hang on a second, let me send that to Mavis." She hunched over her comm device, tapping out the utterly dreadful pun to a young friend back in NLA. She looked up at Elma. "Hey, could we ask her to come join us? Once we get rid of the randos?" She shrugged over her shoulder at the two BLADEs directly behind her.

Elma frowned sternly at Lin, then looked apologetically at the other soldiers. One shrugged and shuffled off to check the lagoon again, but the younger one looked stricken. Lin followed Elma's glance and started babbling excitedly. "Not that we aren't having a blast, right? Totally cool and fun and hey, how about I give you a makeover right now."

Twenty minutes later, after an extreme armor makeover that had required stripping both scouted soldiers and madly swapping their equipment, they bid their temporary teammates goodbye, and headed for Sylvalum.

Lin was sulking again. "I bet you're not gonna let me invite Mavis ever now."

Elma chose her words carefully. "You were rude and unfair, Lin."

"Come on, don't tell me their layouts weren't sorry and stupid."

"If they need to improve, you need to help them. For their sakes and for our future."

"'Elma, I could roll any number of friends out of bed and they'd have better stats on their pajamas."

"If you refuse to help, you're deciding to limit your horizons to what you know already. "

Something about Elma's advice made Lin giggle. "You sound like Nagi." Her young voice became an imitation of his stern and measured cadence. "Miss Koo, Mira is a planet that begs us to keep our minds open."

"Ooo, ooo, let Tatsu try!" The competition to offer increasingly elaborate pearls of wisdom kept them happy until they reached the shores of the entrance to the White Land. Elma listened and didn't mention that the Secretary's experience had been hard earned, and that for all his fine sarcasm he was earnest in his hopes for humanity. He was one of the few humans that Elma felt had always understood the coming losses from the start and yet had steadfastly refused to despair, and she respected him for that.

Another target, another gathering spot. Glinting in the spore sands were exactly the silicon connectors that Vandham wanted for his arcane reasons. The hulking simians that they repeatedly blasted were only cover, but Lin and Tatsu didn't question her. Their two new additions were painfully eager to team with the famous Elma. They seemed slightly disappointed to meet her in human form. Elma didn't quite know what to make of this. All those years, she had worried about being accepted when the truth was revealed. Now, she found herself vaguely resentful that it was her human version that was rejected.

She doubted they noticed her discomfort. Lin swamped them with love and advice, clearly trying to make good her mistakes from the previous continent. In fact, so insistent was she with jumping in to suggest improvements for their combat moves that the team only managed to bag two targets before the official squad goals clicked over to another set. As if that weren't enough irritation, a spore fog chose that moment to descend.

"Well, sh... shoot!" said a muffled voice that might have been Lin's.

"Bummer," said another voice, one of the new members. "No way we can sneak in some surfing now."

"You know about shield surfing?!" squeaked a voice that was definitely Lin's.

"Sure thing, kid. This dune here is wicked fun."

"Not as fun as the other end. That ones' shallow but the turns are gnarly," said a third voice. The two strangers began to list all the best spots on the continent, rattling of in great detail various advantages and disadvantages. For once, it seemed Lin could barely get a word in edgewise, and mostly was able to pop off half a question before the other two returned to schooling her.

A small figure bumped against Elma's knee. "Nopon gods sometimes switch weather if need great enough," Tatsu whispered up at her.

"I don't think surfing counts as a great need," she whispered back at him.

"Shield surfing bestest fun though. Should Tatsu try?"

"I think your gods might be okay with it."

She wasn't sure if Tatsu's prayer had been heard, or even if he'd managed to begin one, but the fog lifted as suddenly as it arrived, and the crew spent more than a few unnecessary minutes sliding down the hill, Tatsu hanging onto Lin on her oversized shield, and the two new teammates taking turns with an extra melee weapon. Elma kept watch, if keeping watch meant ranging around and picking up another set of ingredients.

The original threesome returned home in the early hours of the morning. Lin and Tatsu were yawning their heads off, and Elma's skell bulged with ingredients discretely wrapped in anonymous dark plastic bundles. She parked her skell in the barracks hangar and headed for bed herself. She'd left it unlocked, although she was fairly certain that Vandham could break into any skell on Mira should that be necessary, possibly with his bare hands. She slept well, ate a fine breakfast cooked by a still contrite Lin, and tried not to let herself be consumed by curiosity. Her empty skell was the only hint that Vandham's plan was advancing.

xcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcx

THE SURPRISE

Luckily for Elma's inner tranquility, a global enemy settled near the city by lunchtime. The divisions scrambled to fight it, and when Lin showed signs of hiring the most random of teams to go against it, Elma smiled and stepped in to build a perfectly balanced group, one that included Lin's friend much to their mutual delight. They popped in and out of combat for the next day, and Elma managed to forget the list, the plan, and the secrets until she came face to face with Vandham at a briefing the following morning.

It wasn't the best chance to ask him unobserved. This wasn't a normal briefing, being the weekly one for the highest levels of the administration. Vandham and Nagi were seated already. Chausson was expected shortly. Elma represented BLADEs in the field. Eleonora was there with her astonishing access to helpful details. No one else, because aside from the menace, no new actions or incursions required discussion. Perhaps she could catch the Commander on the way out.

She examined the other people in the room. Eleonora was as efficient and cheerful as always. Nagi sat quietly, more reserved than usual. The retrieval of the Lifehold had done nothing to lighten his mood. Vandham was practically wriggling in his chair, and Elma was reminded even more strongly of certain naughty Nopon in her acquaintance. She racked her brains to guess what he could possibly have built with the obscure set of ingredients and came up with nothing. Still, she would lay good money that he had been successful and would reveal it before the meeting was over.

The door slid open and Elma had her first hint. Her face remained calm, but she couldn't have managed a greeting if her life had depended on it.

Chausson walked stiffly into the room. He was not wearing his customary three-piece bespoke suit. Instead, he was encased in a garish oversized sweater in greens and reds, dotted with tinsel candy canes and what appeared to be gingerbread ovis. It did nothing to bring color to his grey face.

"Director!" Eleonora practically shrieked.

"I apologize for my casual attire. Shall we begin?"

"DIRECTOR!"

He pinched the bridge of his narrow nose. "Yes, quite horrific. However, this is hardly the worst thing worn to a meeting." He glared at Vandham, who was choking with mirth.

"DIRECTORRRRRRRR!"

Chausson stared disapprovingly at Eleonora, who in turn seemed to be growing in distress. Elma still was at a loss for words. The older man sighed. "This is the least of the indignities I've suffered today. Objects rearranged in my rooms. My alarm set to play Japanese heavy metal at painfully loud levels." He tossed a flabby pink rubber bladder onto the table. "This under the sofa cushion."

Eleonora yelped. Elma looked curiously at Nagi for an explanation. "A whoopie cushion, I believe. They make a distinctive sound when sat on."

"Like this," Vandham said eagerly, mimicking a long and flatulent sound. Then he lay his head on the table and rocked with laughter.

Eleonora still couldn't manage a coherent thought, it seemed. "DIRECTORRRRR!" she wailed, wild giggles mixing with her concern.

"Pull yourself together, Eleonora. You weren't the one whose bed was short-sheeted by the most childish man in New Los Angeles." He glared daggers at Commander Vandham.

"But Director!" Eleonora tittered. "Director!"

"What?!" he snapped.

Eleonora finally said what everyone else had until then been incapable of mentioning. "Your ... hair ... it's ... PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINK!"

And so it was. Chausson's short hair, conservative and in every way perfectly proper, was the brightest shade of cherry soda pink. He looked at Elma, who nodded wordlessly, lips quivering with amusement. Vandham was howling face down into the table top. Only Nagi remained unmoved, although a nerve twitched in his cheek. Chausson pulled out his comm device, checking for himself, then snapped it closed so hard that Elma almost expected fragments of its case to fly across the room. "Commander. Vandham. This. Is. Unacceptable!" he ground out.

The Commander peeped up from the table, tears running down his cheeks. "Hey, why are you looking at me?"

"Because EVERY OTHER ARTICLE OF CLOTHING IN MY ROOMS HAS BEEN REPLACED BY TANK TOPS."

Vandham's grin threatened to split his face, but it grew even larger as an unusual sound filled the room. Laughter, low and mellow and without restraint, coming from Nagi. The stoic Secretary of Defense had flung back his head and was laughing with his whole body. Elma was shocked, and amazed, and filled with joy. She laughed quietly herself.

Vandham had managed to stop howling, although he was breathing hard. "Relax, Maurice. It'll start fading soon, maybe before the briefing is over. The color triggered when you stepped into the sunlight, and it'll leave just as fast, four hours tops. If you can't wait, the Mim Center can help you out. Maybe give you a new look to go with your new threads." He started laughing again.

Maurice sat like a martyr surrounded by flames. Eventually, the laughter dwindled to snickers, then hiccups and sniffles. Nagi looked as immaculate as before, although his face had a healthier color than usual. Eleonora poked her hair back into perfection, glanced at Chausson, took a deep breath, and pulled up the latest graphic for discussion. Vandham's smile was brilliant. He winked at Nagi. "Sorry about the delay, but the whole thing suffered from mission creep. I kept adding new stuff to the initial idea. But you gotta admit, I managed that bet."

"I don't recall any bet being made, Commander."

"You knew damn well when you made the suggestion..."

"Hardly a suggestion. More of a speculation, instantly dismissed."

"Dismissed my ass."

"GENTLEMEN!" Chausson hadn't raised his voice from his normal cool tones, but it held enough acid to dissolve miranium. He looked at the metrics on the display screen, then flicked his gaze back at his so-called equals. "In light of this cretinous behavior, may I suggest an emergency agenda item? Security within BLADE tower. Presumably within the barracks as well."

"Excellent point. I have a few questions," chimed in Eleonora.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll give you the list," Vandham answered easily. "I didn't break anything, just used some things I picked up from the Ma-non on exploitable points. And some things from the Orphe. And maybe the Definians. The hair dye, that was off of a Curator discussion. For the most part, a few changes in the ventilation system will fix things. Maybe better motion sensors, aiming up instead of down. Gimme a couple days to type it up."

Nagi was looking at no one in particular. "Due to security concerns, I assume this will be a hard copy. Written."

"Sure, I guess."

"Make that multiple copies. I believe we need a full report for everyone attending. One for the records as well," murmured Chausson.

"Uh, that's ..."

"I agree with Director Chausson. Due to security concerns, the reports shouldn't be reproduced. Hand-written, one for each of us."

"Dammit, Nagi, next you'll tell me you want me to write 'I will not prank Maurice' 500 times."

"No, I'd rather you also fix all of the security exploits. Quietly. On your own time."

Chausson's face was no longer quite so ashen with fury. "A large task, but vital for NLA security. Even if it takes you months. What do you think, Mr. Secretary?"

"I estimate that the Commander should be done slightly after the start of April. **After the start, **and not any sooner."

Vandham's face had crumpled with dismay, his mustache drooping piteously, but he nodded without further whining. The meeting returned to its usual, uninspired topics. It was only because Elma was seated next to Vandham that she heard his last comment on the matter, spoken so low it was probably intended only for himself. "Totally worth it. Totally."

* * *

**a/n: Happy Secret Santa to Neon, Guardian of all things Mavis, and many returns of the day. I so rarely write Elma's voice, so this was a really fun challenge, thank you so much. The fact that you're a Vandham and Nagi fan was the gift that kept on giving, bless your heart.**

**Everyone else: Yes, I split infinitives. Fite me. REI parking lot, across from the Japanese knife store, Thursday, next week.**

**All the people that hated on my April's Fools story last year: you can fite me too. It was nothing, NOTHING, on what my mind can conjure up, and this story is proof of of of that, okay?**

**Shameless plug time: Nagi made that dare, sort of, in "Fried Chicken/2". Shield surfing seen in "Drunkard Hobo Liar/12". Vandham likes BABYMETAL, as mentioned in "Tatsu! Project/6". Shameless plugs remain shameless.  
**

**Happy 2020  
To one and all  
****I won't ask for a port  
But, just saying...  
Make my year, Nintendo, with you know what...**

... or I could play 1000 hours of Animal Crossing, that works too. Or Xenoblade 1. Or Bravely 2. It's difficult to complain when there is so much to look forward to!


End file.
